To Forgive
by Yukann
Summary: When Cloud gets sent back to Nibelheim's burning and successfully stops Sephiroth, he realizes that to forgive himself, he must first forgive his greatest enemy. Up for adoption! XD


FFVII: To Forgive

A/N: If someone wants this story, PM me please. I'll gladly let you takeover. Not to say I'm not going to continue this, but if someone wants to take this, I'd rather let them do it instead (I'm lazy).

For those of you waiting for Summon to be updated, sorry, but I'm totally stuck right now. If anyone would be so kind as to suggest something, I'd much appreciate it! XD

My exams are next week though, so I probably won't be able to write much less update for a while. Sorry!

Oh and I wrote this in like half an hour so sorry for any mistakes k? Enjoy~

Summary:

When Cloud gets sent back to Nibelheim's burning and successfully stops Sephiroth, he realizes that to forgive himself, he must first forgive his greatest enemy.

-0-

Green… Everything was green, and then, suddenly orange.

Orange. Orange. Orange. Orange.

Cloud blinked. Orange became fire. Shadows danced across what had been houses, now a burning pyre, and blinked again.

_Wha...  
_  
Then abruptly, he sat up, and then squeezed his eyes shut and winced at the pounding in his head. He blinked his eyes open once again, waiting until the black spots were gone before carefully picking himself up.

_Nibel...heim?_

His arms grasped for his sword and came up empty. Almost frantically, his eyes scrutinized the place, scouring the area for his beloved weapon, and spotted it not five meters away to his right.

Cloud stumbled over, scrambling for his weapon amidst the blazing fire, mind a mess.

_Fire... Burning... Nibelheim? What's going on? _

Disorientated, the blond continued to limp across familiar settings, stopping in front of a modest single-story house. He saw a corpse that lay at the threshold and shivered.

_What was happening?_

He continued on, tracing familiar pathways, until a large building, grey and rusting, was in view. The girl that lay at the entrance was eerily similar to the previous corpse so Cloud walked by the side and tried to ignore her.

He was immediately assaulted by the strong smell of blood and sweat, a sure sign of a fight, and a hard one at that. The distant clanging of metal upon metal confirmed the fact that the fight was still going on.

Almost against his will, Cloud immediately rushed forward, past a small body covered in blue (_me?_) lying on the ground and came upon said fight.

The black-haired man (_Zack_, somewhere distantly echoed), was being pushed back, defending for his life as the other showed no mercy with continuous slashes upon slashes.

When the blond turned his attention to the other man, a sudden mental assault nearly overcame his senses.

Reunion. ENEMY. PLANET. AERITH. REUNION. DESPAIR.

Visions of a mocking smile, taunting eyes, and, _I will make you taste despair._

The pain became blinding, and Cloud stumbled in a random direction, until his back hit a wall. A slight hiss caught his attention as a door slid open and smoke billowed out.

_Wha...  
_  
Almost immediately, the pain from before was superseded by this one.

SON. PLANET. JENOVA. REUNION… DIE. DIE. DIE. DIE. DIE. DIE!

Glass cracked. The hilt of First Tsurugi protruded from the tube holding the alien, the sword standing perpendicular to her chest.

As his actions dawned on him with slowly growing horror, his legs tottered backwards, away from the Calamity, as he stared wide-eyed at her. The pounding was gone now, replaced by the crushing realization that he had murdered someone or something in the casing.

Green liquid spilled forth from her blue lips, and her sightless eyes seemed to stare accusingly at him.

The glass cracked some more, lacing across the whole casing for a minute before the liquid pressure grew too much and everything was let loose like a torrential downpour.

A minute in, with Cloud standing there covered in gunk, vomit joined the substance that was already on the floor. He could barely hear anything through the roaring of his ears as he heaved, once, twice, three times.

Blood was rushing to his head, and darkness was encroaching into his vision.

Distantly, he could hear screaming.

-0-

Zack knew he couldn't win. Even in their mock-spars he had never managed to pull win. It _had_ been awhile since he'd been promoted to First, but that didn't mean he was on _Sephiroth's_ level.

A slash that barely missed his face flashed past him, nicking a few strands of his hair.

_This isn't the time,_ he told himself, _concentrate, or Cloud's gonna die._

He had never won any of those spars, but that didn't mean he wouldn't try. And this time, he had to win, or die trying.

It had been at least an hour already, a new record, and exhaustion was tugging at his limbs as he tried to force himself to move _faster_, hit _harder_, to_ beat him_. It wasn't working. Sephiroth was levels above him, and Zack could never even _hope_ to touch the soles of his feet.

The despair was beginning to drown him, the hope diminishing. Zack Fair started to slip, even as his enemy (_friend_) taunted him, mocked him, talked about how he was going to destroy the _whole damn world_ for his mother, a woman whom Sephiroth, had never even met before.

And the anger started to slip through, despite Zack's usual rigid control of his emotions.

The memory of his friend falling onto the floor, downed by his own superior, had the blood rushing through his head. Cloud was fucking injured. He could be dying. And Zack couldn't do two fucks for his friend, his _best_ friend. It wasn't fucking fair.

His moves were getting edgier, more reckless as he let the anger control him.

_It wasn't fucking fair!  
_  
The blow to his stomach hurt, and Zack gasped for air. The next punch – not slice and that gave Zack have some hope that his friend was still in there somewhere – hit his face so hard Zack thought his jaw had been dislocated.

The black-haired man saw stars, stumbling backwards blindly, he don't let go of the buster sword though, and he clenched it even tighter.

Suddenly, he was sailing through the air, one second, two seconds and his back slammed into a wall, the impact jarring his already failing senses.

Through his bleary vision, Zack could just make out a tall figure lift his sword up high, on the verge of stabbing him and then he stopped; Sephiroth was motionless.

Masamune dropped from his frozen fingers and clattered onto the floor. Then, his whole body dropped (he was on his knees), eyes widened. His hands trembled towards the sides of his head, gripped them, and screamed.

Zack had never heard something so animalistic come from the mouth of his uptight superior before. It was primal, it was crazy, it was most of all, pained.

The black-haired First might've felt sorry for him but Zack was relishing it too much right now (he'd feel guilty about it later), and could only feel the heart-felt relief that he wasn't going to die.

When the screams finally tapered off, Zack had already blacked out a long time ago.


End file.
